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New Treasures: The Chart of Tomorrows by Chris Willrich

New Treasures: The Chart of Tomorrows by Chris Willrich

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The Chart of Tomorrows-smallBack in May I published a brief head’s up about the latest Gaunt & Bone novel, The Chart of Tomorrows. I finally have a copy in my hot little hands, and I’m impatient to start reading it.

Chris Willrich’s “The Lions of Karthagar,” set in the world of Gaunt and Bone, appeared in the last issue of Black Gate. The first novels featuring the two heroes, The Scroll of Years (2013) and The Silk Map (2014), were both published by Pyr. In this third installment, the two find their plans to retire interrupted when their son becomes the chosen vessel of a powerful spirit…

The poet Persimmon Gaunt and the thief Imago Bone had sought only to retire from adventuring and start a family, but they never reckoned on their baby becoming the chosen vessel of the mystical energies of a distant Eastern land. With their son Innocence hunted by various factions hoping to use him as a tool, they kept him safe at the cost of trapping him in a pocket dimension of accelerated time.

Now free, the thirteen-year-old Innocence has rejected his parents and his “destiny” and has made dangerous friends in a barbaric Western land of dragon-prowed ships and rugged fjords. Desperately, Gaunt and Bone seek to track him down, along with their companion Snow Pine and her daughter A-Girl-Is-A-Joy, who was once trapped with Innocence too.

But as the nomadic Karvaks and their war-balloons strike west, and a troll-king spins his webs, and Joy is herself chosen by the spirit of the very land Innocence has fled to, Gaunt and Bone find themselves at the heart of a vast struggle — and their own son is emerging from that conflict as a force of evil. To save him and everything they know, they turn to a dangerous magical book, The Chart of Tomorrows, that reveals pathways through time. Upon the treacherous seas of history, Gaunt and Bone must face the darkness in each other’s pasts, in order to rescue their future.

The Chart of Tomorrows was published by Pyr Books on July 7, 2015. It is 541 pages, priced at $18 in trade paperback and $11.99 for the digital edition. The cover is by Kerem Beyit.

Vintage Treasures: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Vintage Treasures: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

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We Have Always Lived in the Castle-small We Have Always Lived in the Castle back-small

It’s been at least 25 years since I read Shirley Jackson’s classic We Have Always Lived in the Castle. But it’s the kind of book that sticks in your mind.

I won’t say much about the plot, other than that it deals with the three surviving members of the Blackwood family: Merricat, a practicing witch, her elder sister Constance, who has not left their home for six years, and their deranged Uncle Julian. All three live in a large house, far from the neighboring village. Not so very long ago there were seven members of the family — until someone put a fatal dose of arsenic in the sugar bowl one night. Constance was acquitted of the murders and returned home, where her sister Merricat protects her from the sneers and curiosity of the townspeople. Their days pass in quiet isolation… until a new danger appears, in the shape of their mysterious cousin Charles.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is one of the most famous examples of “Southern Gothic,” and one of works that made Shirley Jackson famous. It was published three years before her death. There have been over a dozen editions, but my favorite is the 1963 paperback above, with the gorgeous and spooky cover by William Teason. You can usually find copies available online for under $10.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle was published in hardcover by The Viking Press in 1962, and reprinted in paperback by Popular Library in October 1963. The paperback is 173 pages, priced at sixty cents.

The Books of Tanith Lee: Companions on the Road

The Books of Tanith Lee: Companions on the Road

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Companions on the Road back-small Companions on the Road spine-small Companions on the Road-small

We’re continuing with our look at the extraordinary 40-year career of Tanith Lee, who passed away on May 24th. So far we’ve covered 13 novels and three collections; today I’d like to look at the slender 1979 paperback Companions on the Road, which I think has been unjustly neglected over the last four decades.

Companions on the Road collects two novellas, Companions on the Road (1975) and The Winter Players (1976). Both were originally published as chapbooks in the UK by Macmillan, with covers by Juliet Stanwell Smith (see below). For their US release as a paperback original, they were collected into a single volume from Bantam titled Companions of the Road: Wondrous Tales of Adventure and Quest, with a wraparound cover by Lou Feck (click on the images above for bigger versions).

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Future Treasures: Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

Future Treasures: Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho

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Sorcerer to the Crown-smallOne of the nice things about hanging out with genre professionals is hearing what gets them excited. While I was at the Nebula weekend here in Chicago in June, there was a lot of excited chatter about an upcoming book from debut novelist Zen Cho, a Malaysian writer who’s published short fiction in anthologies like Bloody Fabulous, End of the Road, and The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women.

Now I finally have my hands on an advance copy of Sorcerer to the Crown, and I can see what all the fuss was about. It captivated me with the very first chapter.  I predict this novel will launch Ms. Cho on a stellar fantasy career.

The Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, one of the most respected organizations throughout all of England, has long been tasked with maintaining magic within His Majesty’s lands. But lately, the once proper institute has fallen into disgrace, naming an altogether unsuitable gentleman — a freed slave who doesn’t even have a familiar — as their Sorcerer Royal, and allowing England’s once profuse stores of magic to slowly bleed dry. At least they haven’t stooped so low as to allow women to practice what is obviously a man’s profession…

At his wit’s end, Zacharias Wythe, Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers and eminently proficient magician, ventures to the border of Fairyland to discover why England’s magical stocks are drying up. But when his adventure brings him in contact with a most unusual comrade, a woman with immense power and an unfathomable gift, he sets on a path which will alter the nature of sorcery in all of Britain — and the world at large…

Sorcerer to the Crown will be published by Ace on September 1, 2015. It is 384 pages, priced at $26.95 in hardcover and $10.99 for the digital edition.

Mur Lafferty Wins 2015 Manly Wade Wellman Award

Mur Lafferty Wins 2015 Manly Wade Wellman Award

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Ghost Train to New Orleans-smallMur Lafferty has been awarded the 2015 Manly Wade Wellman Award, for her novel Ghost Train to New Orleans.

The Manly Wade Wellman Award is granted each year by the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation, for outstanding achievement in science fiction and fantasy novels written by North Carolina authors. This year’s nominees also included The Sea Without a Shore by David Drake, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by A.J. Hartley and David Hewson, Reign of Ash by Gail Z. Martin, and Bad Wizard by James Maxey.

The winner is selected by the combined membership of four North Carolina science fiction and fantasy conventions (illogiCon, ConCarolinas, ConTemporal, and ConGregate). The award was presented on July 11 at ConGregate, in High Point, NC.

Mur Lafferty also won last year’s innaurgual award, for the first novel in the The Shambling Guides series, The Shambling Guide to New York.

Ghost Train to New Orleans (The Shambling Guides #2) was published by Orbit on March 4, 2014.

Read complete details at the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation website.

New Treasures: The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones

New Treasures: The String Diaries by Stephen Lloyd Jones

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The String Diaries-smallTrue, I’m a little late to the party with The String Diaries. It was originally published in hardcover last July, and came out in trade paperback in January. But I just stumbled on a copy last week, and it seems too promising not to share with you. The New York Daily News called Stephen Lloyd Jones’s debut horror novel “terrifying, and deliciously so… A sophisticated horror story that induces elemental terror,” and from what I’ve read so far, that seems accurate.

A family is hunted by a centuries-old monster: a man with a relentless obsession who can take on any identity.

The String Diaries opens with Hannah frantically driving through the night — her daughter asleep in the back, her husband bleeding out in the seat beside her. In the trunk of the car rests a cache of diaries dating back 200 years, tied and retied with strings through generations. The diaries carry the rules for survival that have been handed down from mother to daughter since the 19th century. But how can Hannah escape an enemy with the ability to look and sound like the people she loves?

Stephen Lloyd Jones’s debut novel is a sweeping thriller that extends from the present day, to Oxford in the 1970s, to Hungary at the turn of the 19th century, all tracing back to a man from an ancient royal family with a consuming passion — a boy who can change his shape, insert himself into the intimate lives of his victims, and destroy them.

If Hannah fails to end the chase now, her daughter is next in line. Only Hannah can decide how much she is willing to sacrifice to finally put a centuries-old curse to rest.

The trade paperback edition includes an 11-page preview of the sequel, Written in the Blood, released in hardcover in May. I’m not familiar with Mulholland Books, but I certainly should be — I notice they also publish Joe R. Lansdale, Dan Simmons, Lauren Beukes, and many others. The String Diaries was published by Mulholland Books on January 6, 2015. It is 420 pages, priced at $16 in trade paperback, and $9.99 for the digital version. The cover design is by Keith Hayes.

Is That Your Sword, Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

Is That Your Sword, Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

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By the SwordI love sword-fights. By which I mean I love them in movies and on TV. Not so much in books. Mostly in books they take too long, and illustrate more how much research the writer has done and not so much the moving ahead of the story. And that’s how swords and sword fighting came to mind when I started thinking about what real life things do and don’t happen in fiction, or in movies or TV. If you’d like to see what I’ve already said about this, look here, and here.

So, in the spirit of what does and doesn’t happen in real life vs TV or movies – or even books – just what happens with people’s swords when they aren’t using them to kill someone? And what about other weapons? As I’ve suggested before, this type of thing is fairly easily handled in books. More easily than, say, why characters never (ie. hardly ever) go to the bathroom. In books, when they’re not using them, characters simply sheath their swords, or hang them from their harnesses, or hang them up by the belt on a hook. Or put them down on a table. As the reader, your eyes are directed elsewhere, and you rarely give it another thought.

Sure, sometimes a writer will have a character clean their sword, or other weapons. But there are reasons for this. One, it gives the characters something to do with their hands while dialogue is taking place. Two, how the cleaning gets done tells the reader something about the character’s personality.

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A Wild Ride Through a Cold Hell: A Review of J.P. Wilder’s Schade of Night

A Wild Ride Through a Cold Hell: A Review of J.P. Wilder’s Schade of Night

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Schade of Night-smallSchade of Night
J.P Wilder
iUniverse (350 pages, $20.95 in trade paperback, $3.99 in digital format, December 19, 2014)

Don’t let the lovely young lady and her smile gracing the cover of J.P. Wilder’s wonderful Schade of Night fool you: Schade Lee does little smiling in this dark, action-packed, modern-day fantasy that reads like a paramilitary thriller graced with supernatural overtones.

Schade has some issues, for sure. But she’s one tough, no-nonsense private detective, who can be as stubborn as a mule, as fearless and reckless as a teenager, and often lets her heart rule her head. She’s a disgraced, ex-FBI agent turned investigator who has been hired to find a young girl named Kylie Berson, who’s been kidnapped by one especially sick and twisted serial killer — a real dangerous foe who often leaves cryptic messages for Schade, usually carved into the flesh of his victims. Kylie may already be dead, but Schade refuses to believe that, to accept that, and has vowed not to lose another victim to this crazed maniac.

The story takes place in and around Flagstaff, Arizona, during a dark and cold season of snow and harsh weather. Schade she sets out to save Kylie, no matter what it takes, no matter what it costs. To complicate matters, Schade has been having dreams and visions… visions of places that are real, and she glimpses disturbing images of things that have or will happen in these places.

Add to that a feeling, a sense of some of mysterious power building inside her, her trusty SIG automatic that is some kind of “foci” that can suck the souls out of those she shoots and kills, and then absorb those souls into her own, and you have a young woman with more on her plate than she may be able to handle. She certainly has no idea why these things are happening to her, or how. But when she does find out, well… you can just imagine how she takes the news. Like I said, she’s stubborn.

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Future Treasures: The Complete Kane by Karl Edward Wagner

Future Treasures: The Complete Kane by Karl Edward Wagner

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The complete kane

Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane is one of the greatest sword & sorcery heroes of all time. Reading him today is fairly problematic, however — most of his appearances were in small press magazines like Midnight Sun, which are almost impossible to find. Warner Paperback Library published the complete stories of Kane in five volumes in paperback between 1973 and 1978, and these slender books are highly sought by collectors.

Death Angel’s Shadow (June 1973) — Collection
Bloodstone (March 1975)
Dark Crusade (December 1976)
Darkness Weaves (January 1978)
Night Winds (August 1978) — Collection, World Fantasy Award nominee

Night Shade briefly returned the entire series to print in two volumes, Gods in Darkness (2002), collecting all three novels, and Midnight Sun (2003), which gathered all the short stories, but those sold out quickly and have been out of print for over a decade. Now Centipede Press is reprinting all five Warner volumes in hardcover editions, with new art, rare photos, and printed endpapers. All five are scheduled to be released on October 15.

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New Treasures: The Devil’s Only Friend by Dan Wells

New Treasures: The Devil’s Only Friend by Dan Wells

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The Devil's Only Friend-smallDan Wells’ novel, I Am Not A Serial Killer, featuring monster-killing teenage sociopath John Cleaver, was the first novel in a trilogy. It was followed by Mr. Monster (2010) and I Don’t Want To Kill You (2011). Wells became a New York Times bestseller with Ruins, the third novel in his YA Partials series. Now he returns to the John Cleaver series with the first novel in a brand new trilogy, The Devil’s Only Friend.

John Wayne Cleaver hunts demons: they’ve killed his neighbors, his family, and the girl he loves, but in the end he’s always won. Now he works for a secret government kill team, using his gift to hunt and kill as many monsters as he can…

…but the monsters have noticed, and the quiet game of cat and mouse is about to erupt into a full scale supernatural war.

John doesn’t want the life he’s stuck with. He doesn’t want the FBI bossing him around, he doesn’t want his only friend imprisoned in a mental ward, and he doesn’t want to face the terrifying cannibal who calls himself The Hunter. John doesn’t want to kill people. But as the song says, you can’t always get what you want. John has learned that the hard way; his clothes have the stains to prove it.

When John again faces evil, he’ll know what he has to do.

I’m not the only reader in my house, and I have to admit I wasn’t the one who discovered The Devil’s Only Friend. My daughter brought it home from the bookstore on Saturday, and has been glued to it ever since. Maybe I’ll get her to do a review.

The Devil’s Only Friend was published simultaneously in hardcover and trade paperback by Tor Books on June 16, 2015. It is 304 pages, priced at $25.99 in hardcover, $14.99 in trade paperback, and $9.99 for the digital version.